fleet to over 330 self-deployable ships
in as little as seven years.
| 29 S T R A T E G I C V O I C E S S E R I E S
cemeteries across the nation. “It’s become just too easy to go to war,” according to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen.86
Shrinking the Army, as well as shifting some heavy warfare capabilities to the National Guard and Reserves, will have the secondary effect of impos-ing a decision and a burden upon the nation as a whole before the nation commits itself again to a large-scale effort overseas. A vote for war (or an authorization for the use of force) would then trig-ger the activation of the Guard and Reserve forces as well as a rapid expansion of the Army. While not a draft as in previous times, a decision to grow the All-Volunteer Army quickly would of neces-sity be felt at the local level. The smaller peacetime Army should focus on maintaining competencies in special operations and sustained combat on land with armor and heavy infantry. It is difficult to see where forcible entry forces such as airborne and air assault could play a substantial role in the wars that we are likely to fight. Nevertheless, unmanned platforms, robotic innovations, and exo-skeletons should be exploited in order to lower the cost and heighten the abilities of the Army’s most expensive and valued component: the soldier.
Conversely the Marine Corps should continue the efforts it began with its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review effort to shift back to its maritime roots, emphasizing lighter, more mobile forces designed to be the nation’s emergency response “911” force.
However, the 3-Block War doctrine – the 1990s idea of being able simultaneously to conduct full-scale military operations, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance – should give way to “3 Types of War,” focusing on influence operations such as humanitarian assistance and build-ing partnership capacity, the types of maritime light-infantry missions that the Corps currently trains for, and an additional mission as the Navy’s partner and provider of anti-anti-access capabili-ties. This new mission would seek to degrade or destroy enemy anti-access systems, enabling naval
and air platforms to penetrate into previously pro-tected sanctuaries. Expensive ships built to survive amphibious landings in the face of shore missiles and gun bombardment should give way to more commercially derived designs, in recognition of the low likelihood of opposed amphibious operations in a modern A2AD environment. Technologies such as the MV-22 aircraft allow tactical offset and selective lodgment, having the freedom to choose the direction of approach and a suitable location to establish a base for future operations, and are thus more useful for air assault and vertical envelop-ment, should be enhanced within a future Marine Corps.
Recognizing the nation’s historical and cultural roots as a commercial power that depends upon foreign maritime trade, and appreciating the cur-rent global pressures and fiscal circumstances, the choice should be to extend air and primarily sea power. Savings realized from this investment strategy could be applied towards research and development and reducing spending. This last point is of particular importance if the United States is to emerge from its period of sustainment in a position of influence.
The Critical Component – Research and Development
Prudence demands that some portion of the defense budget should be dedicated to signifi-cant research projects that promise “Manhattan Project”– like leap-ahead potential that would allow the United States to emerge from its era of
“strategic glide” in a stronger technological and strategic position.87 While autonomous unmanned systems, directed energy, electro-magnetics, hyper-sonics, space, and cyber seem obvious choices for focused investment, we should remember that the critical importance of the Manhattan Project was obvious to only a few physicists who felt compelled to bring the possibility of building “the gadget”
to the attention of national leaders.88 Today the United States should follow the lead of officials
who actively solicit insights from the scientific community regarding theories and technologies that suggest war-altering implications.89 Only by investing in the thinnest and sharpest part of the
“cutting edge” of technology can the United States continue to assure its leading position in a future strategic environment and shape the choices of its competitors.
The importance of regaining the initiative can-not be emphasized enough. The continued U.S.
adherence to a containment strategy and its accompanying legacy force structure is no longer an advantage but a disadvantage. For example, the U.S. Navy’s focused dedication to aircraft carriers allowed competitors to develop weapons systems specifically targeted at the carrier’s characteristics.
To counter these emergent threats, the United States Navy has been forced to invest at great cost in technologies to defend the carrier and its capa-bilities; these increases in the defensive portion of its acquisition budget leave less – in its budget and in its ship’s magazines – for offensive, sea-control, and power-projection systems.
This asymmetric dynamic, wherein small invest-ments by a rising power result in disproportionate counter-investments by the pre-eminent power – represents an example of getting inside of a com-petitor’s decision cycle. As the rising power can take steps faster than the Great Power can respond, this forces the latter’s expenditures to rise exponen-tially until system failure results. Only by initiating research and development investments that allow abandonment, not evolution, of the previous strat-egy and its accompanying force structure construct can the Great Power re-establish the initiative and begin imposing costs upon the rising competitor.
Commercial shipping density is shown in red on a map of the world.
(Creative Commons)
CHAPTER 4:
Conclusion
This document is not intended to be solely a state-ment of military strategy. The nation can no longer afford to address the world purely on the basis of its military power. Nor can it allow its foreign policy to be derived from its values. Both approaches create open-ended commitments and costs that exceed the nation’s ability to pay. Strategically and economically, the nation’s destiny remains at sea.
Free trade and free navigation of the global com-mons lie at the center of the global international order that the United States created after World War II and upon which its future depends. Any grand strategy for the United States must be of necessity a maritime strategy. The United States has advantages – significant strengths in the size and vitality of its economy and its military force – but it also has disadvantages in the overwhelm-ing debt brought on by indiscipline and profligate spending. These debts represent the most clear and present danger to the nation’s long-term health.
It is clear that the United States cannot detach itself from its present dangerous fiscal circumstances, and presently no other threat in the world, not even China, poses as significant a threat to U.S.
national security as its own budget does. First and foremost the United States must take immediate corrective action to eliminate, not just decrease, its deficit spending and then to address its long-term debt. No other action will have as significant or lasting impact on national security as eliminating the deficit. All options should be on the table with regard to this strategic imperative.
To the extent that the United States must remain engaged militarily, diplomatically, and economi-cally in the world, the resources dedicated to that endeavor should be allocated in a balanced man-ner first to the maritime realm, then to air, cyber, space, and land in descending order. The nation’s wealth, security, and culture are bound up with the sea and the only real challenge remaining that threatens its existence as a nation, regardless of the way it is conveyed, in a suitcase or a missile, will
have to come from over the sea. Only by following this course of action can the nation strategically sustain the current global system on which the nation’s future depends. Effort should be directed towards developing new technologies that will enable the United States to alter its force structure so as to strengthen its strategic position in the world and reestablish itself inside its competitors’
decision cycles as it emerges from its strategic glide.
There will not be a more strenuous test of the American national character than the challenges confronting the nation in the decade ahead. The challenge is now, the decisions are difficult and the stakes are world-altering. Should the United States falter in its sustainment of the global system of governance that it has spent seventy years of blood and treasure building, codifying, and defending, its future will be a dark one; history, with its unblink-ing eye, will not be kind. The next decade will be one of constant turmoil. Events in Europe, Asia, and in Africa will swirl about, but it is to the U.S.
advantage to remain focused on sustainment. With regard to other issues that erupt across the strategic landscape, American statesmen would do well to remember Marshall’s directive to Kennan: “Avoid trivia.” Additionally we must accept the simple truth of the strategic landscape: that a maritime strategy is our national security strategy, at our founding, at this time, and into the future.
ENDNOTES
1 “X” [George F. Kennan], “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 4 (July 1947), 566–582.
2 John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York, NY:
Penguin Press, 2011), 391–392.
3 A typical example is Robert Kagan’s The Return of History and the End of Dreams (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2008).
4 Ely Ratner, “China Undeterred and Unapologetic,” War on the Rocks, June 24, 2014, http://warontherocks.com/2014/06/china-undeterred-and-unapologetic/; Alexander Lukin, “What the Kremlin is Thinking,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 93, No. 4 (July/August 2014), 85–93; Elbridge Colby and Paul Lettow, “Have We Hit Peak America?“ Foreign Policy, July/August 2014, http://
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/03/have_we_hit_peak_america and Matthias Matthijis and R. Daniel Kelemen, “Europe Reborn,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 94, No. 1 (January/February 2015) 96-107 to name a few.
5 Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 12–23.
6 Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined (London, UK: Pimlico, 1992).
7 Equal Rights Trust Report, “The Ideas of Equality and Non-Discrimination:
Formal and Substantive Equality, 4–6, http://www.equalrightstrust.org/
ertdocumentbank/The%20Ideas%20of%20Equality%20and%20Non-discrimination,%20Formal%20and%20Substantive%20Equality.pdf.
8 Asghar Zaidi, “Population aging and financial and social sustainability challenges of pension systems in Europe,” 10–12, http://www.euro.centre.
org/data/1314615416_96050.pdf.
9 John R. Bermingham, “Immigration: Not a Solution to Problems of Population Decline and Aging,” Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4 (March 2001), 360–363.
10 Raymond Boisvert, “Diversity as Fraternity Lite,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy New Series, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2005), 120–128.
11 Timothy Garton Ash, “The Crisis of Europe: How the Union Came Together and Why it is Falling Apart,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91 No. 5 (September–October 2012), 2–15.
12 George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950 (Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1967), 549–550.
13 Keith Wagstaff, “Why So Many Russians Still Love Stalin,” The Week, March 5, 2013, http://theweek.com/article/index/240921/
why-so-many-russians-still-love-stalin.
14 Michael McFaul, “Putin, the (Not So) Great,” Politico, August 4, 2014, http://
www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/putin-the-not-so-great-109711.
html.
15 CIA, The World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2001.html#rs.
16 Walter Pincus, “Russia’s military is the largest in the region, but it isn’t the same force as in Soviet times,” The Washington Post, March 10, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/
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17 Christopher Harress, “US Joins Russia In Latest Race To Modernize Nuclear Arsenal,” International Business Times, November 14, 2014, http://www.
ibtimes.com/us-joins-russia-latest-race-modernize-nuclear-arsenal-1724102.
18 “Vodka Blamed for Dismal Russian Life Expectancy,” RiaNovosti, January 31, 2014, http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140131/187079194/Vodka-Blamed-For-Dismal-Russian-Life-Expectancy-Figures.html.
19 CIA, The World Factbook: Russia; Richard Krickus, Russia after Putin (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and Army War College Press, 2014), 26–28.
20 Robert Kahn, “The Russian Crisis: Early Days,” Global Economics Monthly (Council on Foreign Relations, January 2015), http://www.cfr.org/economics/
global-economics-monthly-january-2015/p35923.
21 Walter Russell Mead, “Putin is Playing a Game of His Own,” The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240 52702304888404579381071171060730.
22 Lingling Wei, “China Ponders Slow-Growth Dilemma,” The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/articles/
china-ponders-slow-growth-dilemma-1411654014.
23 “World in 2050: The BRICs and Beyond,” Price Waterhouse Company Report, January 2013, 8, http://www.pwc.com/en_GX/gx/world-2050/assets/pwc-world-in-2050-report-january-2013.pdf.
24 “Chinese defense budget to increase 12.2% in 2014,” China Daily, March 5, 2014, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014npcandcppcc/2014-03/05/
content_17323159.htm.
25 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to the Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014, 43.
26 China has apparently surpassed the United States in Purchasing Power Parity, according to a October 7, 2014 report from the International Monetary Fund, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/NEW100714A.
htm.
27 Sukjoon Yoon, “Xi Jinping’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’: Rebuilding the Middle Kingdom Order?” RSIS Commentaries, No. 102/2014 (May 29, 2014), http://
www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CO14102.pdf; Jane Perlez,
“Leader Asserts China’s Growing Importance on Global Stage,” The New York Times, November 30, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/asia/
leader-asserts-chinas-growing-role-on-global-stage.html.
28 “China’s Economy Faces Sluggish Start for New Year,” Reuters, January 1, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/business/international/china-facing-sluggish-start-for-new-year.html; Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “China’s leaders refuse to blink as economy slows dramatically,”
| 35 S T R A T E G I C V O I C E S S E R I E S
The Telegraph, September 15, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/
china-business/11098178/Chinas-leaders-refuse-to-blink-as-economy-slows-drastically.html; Gwynn Guilford, “Larry Summers explains why the world is too optimistic about China’s economic future,” Quartz, October 16, 2014, http://qz.com/281609/larry-summers-explains-why-the-world-is-too-optimistic-about-chinas-economic-future/.
29 The World Bank, “GDP per capita,” http://data.worldbank.org.
30 “World in 2050: The BRICs and Beyond,” Price Waterhouse Company Report.
31 Mitali Das and Papa N’Diaye, “Chronicle of a Decline Foretold: Has China Reached the Lewis Turning Point?” IMF Working Paper, January 2013, http://
www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1326.pdf.
32 International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Gross Savings (% of GDP),” http://data.
worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS.
33 Noah Feldman, Cool War: The Future of Global Competition (New York:
Random House, 2013), 23–34.
34 Neil Gough, Chris Buckley and Nick Wingfield, “China’s Energetic Enforcement of Antitrust Rules Alarms Foreign Firms,” The New York Times, August 10, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/business/
international/china8217s-energetic-enforcement-of-antitrust-rules-alarms-foreign-firms.html.
35 Keith Bradsher, “Amid Tension, China Blocks Vital Exports to Japan,” The New York Times, September 22, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/
business/global/23rare.html.
36 Stephen Ezell, “China’s Economic Mercantilism,” Industry Week, July 24, 2013, http://www.industryweek.com/public-policy/
chinas-economic-mercantilism.
37 James Kraska, Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
38 “China’s Big Dilemma – Currency Reform,” Reuters, April 27, 2013, http://
www.cnbc.com/id/100681356.
39 Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 3–6.
40 John Steele Gordon, An Empire of Wealth (New York: Harper Collins, 2004).
41 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, 73–74.
42 Bernard W. Sheehan, “Jefferson’s ‘Empire of Liberty’,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 100, No. 4 December 2004, 346–363.
43 Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 66–69.
44 Alexander Hamilton, “No. 26,” The Federalist (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 128–129.
45 James Madison, “No. 41,” The Federalist, 209–210.
46 Ernest R. May, American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York:
Atheneum, 1968), 3–16.
47 Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1918), 25–89.
48 See Henry J. Hendrix, Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy (Annapolis:
Naval Institute Press, 2007), for a deeper exploration of this topic.
49 James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 201–205, 275.
50 Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change (New York: Doubleday, 1963), 445–458; H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty (New York: Harper Collins, 1997), 1011.
51 Guy Eastman, “Analysis: U.S. No Longer Spends More on Defense than the Next 10 Biggest Countries Combined,” IHS Jane’s 360, June 25, 2014, http://
www.janes.com/article/40083/analysis-us-no-longer-spends-more-on-defense-than-next-10-biggest-countries-combined.
52 Ferguson, Colossus, 283.
53 Jim Tankersley, “Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers,” The Atlantic, October 5, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/
who-destroyed-the-economy-the-case-against-the-baby-boomers/263291/.
54 Doug Short, “Charting the Incredible Shift from Manufacturing to Services in America,” Business Insider, September 5, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.
com/charting-the-incredible-shift-from-manufacturing-to-services-in-america-2011-9.
55 “Private Debt Kills the Economy,” Global Research, September 9, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/private-debt-kills-the-economy/5303842.
56 Tyrone Marshall Jr., “Debt is Biggest Threat to National Security, Chairman Says,” DoD News, September 22, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/news/
newsarticle.aspx?id=65432.
57 U.S. National Debt Clock: Real Time, USDebtClock.org.
58 The quoted phrase references John Maynard Keynes’ investment theory put forth in his seminal 1936 work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
59 China is within five years of matching or surpassing the United States in some areas of economic power, but would need additional time to translate economic power into military power and even longer to translate military power into diplomatic and legal power on a worldwide scale.
60 Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950, 326.
61 Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances, 1994, http://
www.cfr.org/arms-control-disarmament-and-nonproliferation/
budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484.
62 Kagan, Of Paradise and Power, 70–75.
63 American Society of Civil Engineers, Failure to Act: The Impact of Current Infrastructure Investment on America’s Economic Future, 2013, http://www.asce.
org/uploadedFiles/Issues_and_Advocacy/Our_Initiatives/Infrastructure/
Content_Pieces/failure-to-act-economic-impact-summary-report.pdf.
64 “North American Midstream Infrastructure through 2035: Capitalizing on Our Energy Abundance,” INGAA Foundation Report, (ICF International, March 18, 2014) http://www.ingaa.org/file.aspx?id=21498; Electromagnetic Pulse:
Effects on the U.S. Power Grid, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Report, 2010.
65 U.S. National Debt Clock.
66 This idea is a derivative of Major John Boyd’s thoughts on Energy Management Theory as expressed in Maj. John R. Boyd, USAF, Thomas P.
Christie, and 1st Lt. James E. Gibson, USAF, Energy Maneuverability Air Proving Ground Center Eglin AFB, FL March 1966.
67 Stephen Dinan, “Federal government’s tax-take hits all time high,”
Washington Times, October 15, 2014, http://www.washingtontimes.com/
news/2014/oct/15/feds-tax-take-hits-all-time-high/.
68 Government Publishing Office, “Fiscal Year 2016 Budget of the United States Government,” Office of Management and Budget, February 2015, 96, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode
=BUDGET&browsePath=Fiscal+Year+2016&searchPath=Fiscal+Year+
2016&leafLevelBrowse=false&isCollapsed=false&isOpen=true&packa geid=BUDGET-2016-BUD&ycord=4.
69 John Hood, “How to Fix Medicaid,” National Affairs, Summer 2010, http://
www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/how-to-fix-medicaid.
70 Social Security Administration, “Life Expectancy for Social Security, “http://
www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html.
71 Social Security Administration, “History of Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments, “http://www.socialsecurity.gov/news/cola/automatic-cola.htm;
US Inflation Calculator, “Historical Inflation Rates: 1914-2015,” http://www.
usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/.
72 David C. John, Three Social Security Fixes to Solve the Real Fiscal Crisis, Issue Brief No. 3807, The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/
72 David C. John, Three Social Security Fixes to Solve the Real Fiscal Crisis, Issue Brief No. 3807, The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/